UK rules on building with timber are a "policy car crash" says Andrew Waugh

Rules restricting the use of wood in UK buildings are hampering the switch to low-carbon building methods, according to timber architecture expert Andrew Waugh.

Waugh attacked recent government legislation and new funding rules for affordable housing in London, both of which make it harder for architects to specify timber.

Timber architecture expert Andrew Waugh

"It's a car crash," said Waugh, describing the restrictions as "pseudo common sense not based on any expert opinion."

Last month, London mayor Sadiq Khan unveiled rules governing the allocation of funds worth £3.46bn to build 29,456 homes in the capital.

The rules include a "ban on combustible materials being used in external walls for all residential development, regardless of height."

The rule goes further than recently introduced UK-wide regulations, which outlaw the use of combustible materials on the external walls of any building over 18 metres tall.

Rules introduced after Grenfell fire

Both rules have been introduced in the wake of the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster, in which 72 people died after the plastic-and-aluminium cladding on the London housing block caught fire.

Waugh described the rules as a "politicised knee-jerk reaction" that confuse combustibility with fire performance and contradict efforts to tackle carbon emissions from construction.

"Carbon taxes on building materials are an inevitability," Waugh said, referring to the fact that construction accounts for around 40 per cent of global emissions.

"Carbon will have to be accounted for and as soon as that happens, then we will need to be building in low-carbon building materials."

Waugh Thistleton is building an all-timber structure office in Shoreditch

"At the same time, there's a politicised knee-jerk reaction against anything combustible, meaning that you won't be able to build in low-carbon materials," he added.

"That is going to create a policy car crash where they're legislating against something while at the same time legislating for it."

Waugh said that the London mayor's office has been unable to explain whether the ban applies to window frames and lintels, which are commonly made of timber.

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BREEAM and LEED green certification schemes are "meaningless" says Andrew Waugh

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Embodied carbon, which describes emissions caused during the construction process, has come under the spotlight recently.

These emissions account for around half of all emissions from the built environment but have been neglected when compared to operational carbon, which is the term for emissions caused by buildings in use.

"This needs to change," Waugh said. "I think governments are still wrapped up in talking about operational carbon [emissions caused by the building in use] but actually the western world is already really efficient at building efficient buildings."

Green certification schemes "meaningless"

In an interview with Dezeen earlier this year, Waugh described green certification schemes such as BREEAM and LEED as "meaningless" since they focus on reducing operational emissions while overlooking embodied carbon.

"They're meaningless," he said. "They are awards that prop up the existing systems."

Interest in biomaterials including timber, hemp, cork and mycelium has surged recently as architects explore ways of reducing the embodied carbon of their projects.

Several countries and cities have introduced legislation to encourage the use of biomaterials. Natural materials must now make up at least half of all the raw materials used in new public buildings in France.

In New York, the city council just approved the use of mass timber for the construction of buildings of up to 85 feet (25.9 metres) tall.

The studio claims it is London's first multi-storey timber office to since the 17th century

Waugh is co-founder of London timber specialist Waugh Thistleton Architects. London projects by the studio include a demountable office block featuring a hybrid frame made of steel and cross-laminated timber, and a nine-storey timber residential building that was at the time of construction the tallest of its type in the world.

The studio is currently building a five-storey office building in Shoreditch, London, which features an all-timber structure. The architect claims it is the first multi-storey timber office to be built in the city since the 17th century.

A member of the Architects Declare steering committee, Waugh contributed to the RIBA's Built for the Environment report on how to decarbonise architecture. This was published last month ahead of November's COP26 climate conference.

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BREEAM and LEED green certification schemes are "meaningless" says Andrew Waugh

Environmental certification schemes for buildings overlook embodied carbon and encourage architects to add unnecessary "systems and gizmos" to achieve high ratings, according to architect Andrew Waugh.

Schemes such as BREEAM and LEED focus overwhelmingly on operational emissions rather than emissions from the construction supply chain, Waugh argued.

However, embodied carbon emissions make up around half of all emissions from buildings. The percentage is rising as buildings become more energy-efficient and renewable energy becomes more prevalent.

"The certification systems still focus on operational carbon," said Waugh, who is founding director of London architecture studio Waugh Thistleton Architects and a member of the steering committee of climate action network Architects Declare.

"They're meaningless. They are awards that prop up the existing systems."

BREEAM and LEED don't focus on embodied carbon

To achieve BREEAM's highest Outstanding rating, a building needs 85 credits, Waugh said. But only nine or ten credits are available for approaches that tackle embodied carbon, he claimed.

To achieve Platinum under the LEED system, a building needs 80 points. But only three are available for embodied carbon, according to Waugh.

Above: Foster + Partners Bloomberg building is an example of a project that prioritises operational carbon over embedded carbon. Top: Andrew Waugh Architects founder Andrew Waugh

Waugh said that UK regulations covering operational carbon are already "pretty good" in the UK and achieving zero operational emissions is achievable, particularly since the electricity grid is rapidly switching to renewable sources.

"For heating, lighting and air conditioning, building regulations are pretty good," he said. 'They drive pretty hard targets and the more we green our energy systems, the less of an issue it becomes."

"There's no accounting for future decarbonising of power"

But he said "there's no accounting for future decarbonising of power" in the certification schemes.

This means that schemes such as BREEAM and LEED are misguided, he said, since they encourage architects to focus too much on adding unnecessary energy-saving technologies in order to increase their certification ratings. "The return is so incremental," he argued.

Waugh cited Foster + Partners' Bloomberg headquarters in London as an example.

Completed in 2017, the office building was dubbed "the world's most sustainable office" and achieved the highest-ever BREEAM rating for an office building. It claims to require 35 per cent less energy than a standard office building and won the 2018 Stirling Prize for the best building by a British architect.

The Bloomberg achieved the highest ever BREEAM rating for an office building

However, the £1 billion building was criticised at the time for its extravagance and its reliance on complex systems which include hundreds of moveable bronze fins to regulate solar gain and ceilings covered in 2.5 million bespoke aluminium petals that reflect light and help regulate acoustics and temperate.

The Stirling Prize jury's sustainability adviser Simon Sturgis told the Architects Journal that the building's victory was a "disastrous result" that he hoped would be "the last flourish of a high-resource approach to design and construction."

"The embodied carbon footprint of the finished building is going to be a significant multiple of a standard high-quality office building, even taking longevity into account," he said.

Foster + Partners itself admits that certification systems overlook embodied carbon.

"The existing certification systems focus on the operational energy which is expended by a building in use, but do not fully address the implications of embodied carbon emissions resulting from the energy required to construct a building and during manufacture," it writes in its sustainability manifesto.

"The Bloomberg building is a great example," Waugh said. "They've reduced operational carbon over and above building regulations to meet BREEAM targets with all these systems and gizmos, layering more and more stuff onto an existing architecture."

BREEAM and LEED are two of the top certification schemes

BREEAM and LEED are two of the world's leading certification schemes, with both claiming to be the world's most-used green building certification system.

BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) was launched by UK research institute the Building Research Establishment in 1990.

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) was launched in 1993 and is administered by the US Green Building Council.

Both BREEAM and LEED have made modest changes recently to take embodied carbon into account.

In 2019, BREEAM introduced credits for architects that carry out lifecycle assessments (LCA) to establish emissions over both the construction and use phases of a building.

Conducting an LCA and choosing low-impact materials can now earn half the available credits in the materials category, according to a blog post on the BREEAM website. In addition, the weighting of materials in the overall scoring system has been increased to 15 per cent.

Version 4.1 of LEED, which was introduced in 2019, includes new credits for LCAs, building reuse and environmental product declarations (EPDs), all of which can help lower embodied carbon.

"These credits incentivize real reductions in embodied carbon at multiple scales throughout the building lifecycle," said a LEED blog post announcing the changes.

BREEAM said the schemes help projects achieve net-zero

Dezeen approached BREEAM and LEED to respond to Waugh's claims but had not heard back by the time of publication.

However, a spokesperson for BREEAM said that the scheme "does help projects to achieve net-zero".

"BREEAM building schemes have credits promoting operational energy efficiency. There are also credits encouraging low embodied carbon."

But the spokesperson admitted: "At the moment these aren't pulled out into a single carbon metric and BREEAM doesn't capture all the potential “net” options of net-zero carbon.

A future update "will provide a more comprehensive assessment of net-zero carbon."

But Waugh argued that buildings were assessed "as designed, not in use. So there's no telling if the carbon savings are even made."

"These certification systems encourage a 'keep digging' mentality to get us out of this very man-made hole," he added. "It's very much business as usual, just with more stuff and systems. And all those systems can be ruined if you open a window, or if you take your jacket off."

"What's required is a complete paradigm shift to predominantly passive, resource-conscious design," he concluded.

The built environment is said to be responsible for 40 per cent of global CO2 emissions

Last week, a UK construction industry group called Part Z called for mandatory reporting of embodied carbon for new building projects to tackle "hidden" emissions caused by construction supply chains.

"Regulating embodied carbon is vital for the construction industry in tackling the climate crisis," the group said. "The industry is ready for this."

In total, the built environment is thought to be responsible for around 40 per cent of global CO2 emissions, with embodied carbon accounting for around half of this.

Built-environment emissions will be on the agenda at the UN's COP26 climate conference in November, which for the first time will feature a day dedicated to the sector.

However, UN climate champion Nigel Topping has expressed frustration at the lack of engagement by architects in the drive towards a net-zero economy.

Meanwhile, just six per cent of RIBA architecture firms have signed up to the body's 2030 Climate Challenge, which is aimed to help them deliver net-zero buildings. Foster + Partners, Grimshaw Architects and Zaha Hadid Architects are among practices that have failed to sign up.

Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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